...there isn't often anything in Wagner opera that one would call by such a violent name as acting.

We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.

A lie can make it half way around the world before the truth has time to put its boots on.

One is apt to overestimate beauty when it is rare

In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. Therefore, in the Old Silurian Period the Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred thousand miles long, seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesome returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

It is a good and gentle religion, but inconvenient.

The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession.